Mental Illness: Capitalism Makes Us Sick

Don't Worry, it's not you. Fight back is the cure

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444,retired

“The damage is on the scale of the global financial crisis”. 

We are not talking about climate change with this quote as that looming catastrophe has far more savage consequences than the global financial crisis. The quote is what Paul Gionfriddo, president of Mental Health America, has to say about the horrific state of mental health in US society.

No doubt the most ardent Trump supporters, if they can drag themselves away from their violent obsession with a small, brown skinned Somali refugee, will consider “fake news”, the most recent findings from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which reveal what Business Week calls a “national mental health epidemic”.

The report points out that 2017 was quite a year for suicides in the US with 47,000 deaths. There were 1.4 million suicide attempts so some might say it’s a fair survival rate and a confirmation of the skill and dedication of the AMT’s who are not paid enough for their work I might add. They helped me out a week ago.

From 2006 through 2016 the suicide rate has been increasing 2% a year but that’s not the worst of it. 70,000 died from drug overdoses in 2017 while another 17.3 million, or 7%, of U.S. adults reported suffering at least one major depressive episode in the past year Business Week reports.  It is widely known that US life expectancy has been declining, including among the white population, a “privileged” group (some more so than others), and has done so for the past three years, the first three year decline since 1915 to 1918. Let’s see, what was happening then?  And the Predator in Chief declares immigration to be a National Security issue and a war on Iran necessary to save our way of life. I might differ and argue that I think all the threats of war, nuclear as well as conventional, that are initiated by the US government might be a major contributor to depression and the figures above.

The BW article does touch on the causes of this mental health epidemic mentioning “social and environmental factors” and that, “life circumstances matter a lot.

The author, Cynthia Koons correctly points out that the, U.S. is home to some particularly challenging “psychological stressors” that can lead to the many conditions that fall under the heading of mental health problems: “stagnant wages; rising health-care costs; the proliferation of highly addictive opioids after a marketing push from major drug companies; the disappearance of well-paid blue-collar jobs and the emergence of the gig economy; the lack or limited availability of treatment and services.

The US ruling class is concerned that the mental health epidemic is hurting business costing some $80 to $100 billion annually according to the Center for Workplace Mental Health that also claimed that two thirds of those that have mental health or substance abuse problems don’t receive any treatment from doctors. The UK’s Lancet Commission reckons mental health “disorders” could cost the global economy $$16 trillion by 2020, that’s assuming climate change or nuclear conflict doesn’t get us first.

We are in the belly of the beast here in the US. Of all the advanced capitalist countries we have the worst health care system and social services. The dominant ideology that the individual is in control of their own destiny, that one’s condition is due to one’s own decisions, is very strong and this contributes to the mental health crisis as people blame themselves for predicaments they find themselves in that are not of their own making. No one rally believes Jeff Bezos pulled himself up by his bootstraps or Bill Gates is truly a “self made” man. Fear, alienation, wondering if they will be homeless or lose everything if they get sick is another trigger; there is little security in the land of the free and an economic slowdown is around the corner. I found myself in an ambulance last week and the first thing I asked the AMT’s was “Who is going to pay for this?”

What is notably absent from Business Week’s reporting of these findings is the mention of the term, capitalism. We do not live in a “system” it seems. There is a major crisis in Venezuela at the moment, partly driven by the failings of the Maduro regime and greatly exacerbated by the US and its economic warfare. The reader should recall that the US has tried for 20 years to undermine and destroy what Chavez began including supporting his kidnapping and potential assassination in 2002.  But whenever the US mass media reports on conditions in Venezuela, Cuba, or any country that resists US and global capitalism’s total domination and whose economy is struggling under this assault, it is reported as a failure of socialism.  When I first came to this country some workers told me that the British national health system was communist.

Major capitalist economic gurus are concerned and trying desperately to head off a major catastrophe. In Pythonesque style, the UK government created a Minister of Loneliness in 2018 in response to disturbing findings about social isolation. Tiny New Zealand unveiled a Wellbeing Budget this year to deal with mental health issues including services. For the US though public services are not popular with the owners of capital and the trade union hierarchy has traditionally failed to fight for them even opposing sick leave at one point. 

Business Week points out that the aforementioned NZ government’s mental health budget is 15 times greater on a per capita basis than what the US spends through its Mental Health Services Administration it reveals the immense political power the corporations have in the US with two political parties representing their interests. Business Week adds that Daniel Yohanna, noted that 50 beds per 100,000 would meet Americans’ acute and long-term care needs. In some states the number is as low as 5 per 100,000. * This is not a lack of money or resources; it is a political decision on how society allocates capital, the collective wealth produced by workers. The 800 or so US bases around the world have to be paid for some how.

All these attempts to fix capitalism, to make it do what it cannot do are futile. In the last analysis capitalism is about profits, it is about the rapacious struggle for exchange value and production and allocation of capital has to be geared to that end. Social services, caring for the sick and infirm, caring for nature, creating socially useful employment is all money out. Public services crowd out private capital and for the owner of capital it is an inefficient way to invest their precious possession.

The mass media and what are passed off as economic experts or news men and women are simply propagandists for capitalism. Public sector workers are demonized, the United States Postal Service (USPS), one of the most efficient services in the country is constantly under attack, its workers demeaned and always under threat of privatization. As it is, no matter where you live in the US you get your mail, and we live on a continent. But the private sector wants its grubby little hands on it. The first thing they’ll do if they get hold of the USPS is close some 4000 offices that will overwhelmingly harm the aged, the urban and rural poor.

For all their propaganda against public services and socialist policies, there’s no limit though when it comes to spending the taxpayers money bailing out their system when it seizes up. It’s worth mentioning that the cost of dragging capitalism from the edge of the abyss in 2008 was an immediate $700 billion relief and by some accounts, the total commitment from the government is $16.8 trillion

Back in 1989 the US Congress enacted the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act in response to the collapse of the Savings and Loan industry. The taxpayer pumped some $293.3 billion into the industry, one of the most costly and extensive government bailouts of all time. Not only that, the Resolution Trust Corp. was formed to buy 747 thrifts with total assets of $394 billion.  This government agency then threw out the worst of them and sold the surviving ones back to the same crooks that caused the problem at bargain basement prices. When the right wingers complain about immigrants and people on welfare (most people on welfare are white by the way) we need to remind them of these figures and how they were forced to pay it.

There was only one person went to jail for that. Yet our jails are full of working class and poor people many of them driven to the depths of despair and to petty crime or mental breakdown due to social alienation, lack of opportunity, homelessness and so on.

There are important lessons in life if we take the time to think about them. Most importantly delve in to history from below, the history of the struggle of the working class in this country and all those who have resisted the dehumanizing consequences of the so-called free market and whose heroic efforts have benefited all of us. The Native People are still here and with dignity despite a centuries old genocidal war against them. The descendants of African slaves are among us whose ancestors had as many rights as a tractor and they too, despite massive state repression and a racist injustice system, have never given up. And the struggles of women, gays, all specially oppressed sections of society, this understanding of history from below is crucial and inspiring. The heroic battles to build unions and win some relief from the bosses’ control of the work process from the craft unions of the 19^th century, the wars in the textile industries and taming of the industrial giants like GM through the rise of the CIO this has to be embedded in our consciousness. And restraining of the worst aspects of racism in the US Apartheid south in the Civil Rights movement, these and more are our history, so we have to understand we are a class unto ourselves with our own needs and our own collective interests. We have a lot to be proud of as US workers.

It is also imperative that we recognize that capitalism makes us sick.  The mass media that the ruling class owns tries to paint a rosy picture. Hollywood actors become millionaires helping distract us from the uncertainty of life. The constant fear in the back of our minds as the homeless encampments, tent cities grow, as the security forces murder with impunity and the jails are filled with working class youth with our brothers and sisters of color disproportionally affected. It’s not that people don’t care though, the object of the media is to convince us the poor are poor through their own mistakes.  “Better its not me” is the easy way out. “I’d do well to keep my mouth shut.”

There would have to be something wrong if you weren’t depressed at the very least living in capitalist society, an economic system that places the accumulation of capital above basic human needs. You would have to have lost your humanity to not be affected by the recent racist and xenophobic assault by the serial sexual abuser Trump on a small Somali Muslim refugee who dares to stand up for what she believes in. The world is always unstable, on the verge or war and then environmental catastrophe threatens to end life as we know it. We may think we shut this out but we don’t; we cannot but be affected by it.

Recognizing that it’s not you, it’s the system, is the first step to a healthy future like the addict that overcomes denial. I have been there.. This is difficult in that the ruling class goes through extreme measures to convince us that the system doesn’t exist. They are helped in this by the fact that there is no major social force at this point that counters the dominant ideology of capital. There is no major social force to turn to politically or that can organize resistance on the ground through mass direct action.  The heads of organized labor could provide this but they will not as they accept capitalism as the only possible form of social organization. To mobilize the potential power of their 14 million members terrifies them it can only lead to chaos from their point of view.

Being a victim, not seeing a way out, is also a major contributor to mental illness, but this will change. The US working class will be forced to move in to struggle in a serious way in the not so distant future and I believe, or my experience is, that when the working class moves in to struggle it tends to seek class allies, it tends to move to overcome the social barriers to working class unity, sexism, racism, all forms of prejudice and discrimination that are used by the ruling class to prevent this unity.

We will be forced to confront the task that history has set for us.

* “Deinstitutionalization of People with Mental Illness: Causes and Consequences” in the AMA Journal of Ethics in 2013. Quoted in linked Business Week article

DSA: Pelosi, "We're capitalists, and that's just the way it is"

An opportunity exists in US society. 57% want a third political party and 43% say socialism would be good for the country. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and its elected officials can provide this alternative.

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired.

I watched the press conference the four “progressive” Congresswomen gave yesterday.  The conference was called in response to the racist and xenophobic tweets from the Predator in Chief, Trump, who is feeling a little trapped and uncertain about his future. The four women Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, were right to point out how these vicious racist attacks on them by the most powerful leader in the world are the sideshow, a distraction as nasty as they are.  They described Trump and his psychopathic nature to a T refusing to engage him or dignifying this serial sexual deviant by responding to his bizarre and hateful claims. Were the consequences of his actions and words not so dangerous, it would be comical him telling people to go back to where they’re from given his wife was not born here and also brought her parents here under some family plan I assume.
Instead these four women tried to made the political issues and things they stand for the theme, and warned not to “take the bait”. Trump’s invectives have been particularly brutal for Ilhan Omar accusing her of being a terrorist and an Al Qaeda supporter. This is somewhat hypocritical coming from someone who “touched” the orb with the Saudi gang that murdered and dismembered the well-known Saudi dissident Jamal Kashoggi.
Trump’s racist and xenophobic attacks on these women have to be condemned by all workers as all workers are harmed by them.  They weaken class unity and our organized power. His appeal to white nationalists, Nazi’s and other fascist elements do not bode well for white workers either so it’s not time for us to sit back. Fascism and war, led to the deaths of millions of white workers in Europe.
It is good to see these women stand their ground and they put the leaders of the workers organizations in the US to shame. We have no political party of our own so I am talking here about the heads of organized labor, the top dogs at the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Coalition which I think is down to the Teamsters and the SEIU. Either way, these officials represent 14 million organized workers. California has two million workers affiliated to the AFL-CIO and the Los Angeles Labor Federation alone has over 800,000 workers affiliated to it. The Chicago Federation of Labor has some 320 unions and 500,000 workers affiliated.
I visited a couple of union websites and it is beyond a disgrace, it is simply criminal given what is happening in US society today that the leaders of 14 million organized workers have nothing to say; nothing inspiring, no explanation of events, history and especially nothing that would show any way forward at all. This serial sexual abuser in the White House is doing what he is doing and the dogs that don’t bark continue with their deafening silence.  Of course, a whole bunch of them went to the White House to kiss Trumps ass after his election and Teamster leader Hoffa praised him as has the Afl-CIO head Richard Trumka. They all pretty much said they would “work” with him. They are even more scared now as the teachers/educators struggles have blown a whole in their decades old argument for doing nothing that we can’t win.

I couldn’t find much at all at the AFL-CIO site and stayed long enough before I fell asleep but on the blog I noticed the advice about how the reader (an unorganized worker I assume) should “Form a Union”:

Get together with your co-workers who may share a common interest in organizing a union.

Talk to a union organizer in order to strategize and to learn the next steps.

Talk to your co-workers to build support for the union.

Show that support through an election or a card-check once you have a strong majority.

It shows how cut off they are from the workplace that they can write something like this. Might the employer retaliate? The consequences of these activities is most often termination and asking a union organizer to strategize and learn doesn’t impress. Union organizing hasn’t been successful at all in increasing membership and the UAW leadership and its strategy just lost a third organizing drive at the VW plant in Chattanooga due to the ineptness of the UAW leadership’s strategy.

The Teamsters’ site is exciting; it mentions nothing about Trump as far as I could see, leaves these courageous women out to dry and says nothing about how racism and his viscous attacks on immigrants weakens working people, our unity and therefore our ability to fight back against this capitalist offensive. It does have a link to a survey of Teamster members to find out what questions to ask the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates in 2020. Hoffa and the union hierarchy will be sure to select the least harmful questions. This is the same leadership that just tried to impose a contract on members after they voted it down using contractual language inserted just for that purpose.
The SEIU site was all about their fight for $15 campaign and the UFCW site is quite taken with its victory around cannabis trainings. UFCW makes history in California with cannabis safety trainings My former union, Afscme, has a piece from President Lee Saunders welcoming the resignation of Alex Acosta, Trump’s Labor Secretary, It “….was long overdue,” says Saunders, who then goes on to whine about the guy replacing Acosta, Patrick Pizzella who has a “…..long history of hostility to workers’ rights and to unions.” 
Saunders is shocked, “Instead of pushing the interests of big business, workers need a labor secretary who’s focused on protecting them and ensuring they receive a fair return for the work they do.” he says. It’s almost child-like, yes, lets all be fair.
This is a leadership that has passed its shelf life.
So the women who have been savaged, attacked as terrorists, told they’re not American and hate America by the Predator in Chief get no help from the heads of organized labor with its 14 million members. They have pretty much remained silent as racist attacks and murders by state security forces and white nationalist terror groups continue to gain confidence under Trump’s lead. This week Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s former speech writer waded in and attacked AOC and Ilhan Omar in particular in her WSJ column, accusing them of extremism, disrespect, manipulating people and so on. This is the woman who described Reagan as like a “god”, the guy who fired 11,000 US workers banning them from working in their industry for life.  Reagan was another anti-union moron in power.
We have pointed out in numerous articles, here and here  that there is an opportunity here for the Democratic Socialists of America of which I am a member, to make a difference. DSA has some 60,000 members and has grown tenfold since 2016. It has numerous elected officials as members including two of the four women at the press conference above, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Rashida Tlaib although they rarely if ever mention this now.
The DSA has endorsed Bernie Sanders in what many members have said was a rather undemocratic, top down rush job. But more importantly, DSA has an opportunity to unify and build on the movements that have arisen over issues from environmental catastrophe to the disastrous US health care system, education, housing and so on. But none of these issues can be resolved though the Democratic Party, one of the world’s most powerful capitalist political bodies, yet DSA’s leadership and a huge section of the organization cling to the Democratic Party and refuse to offer US workers an alternative.
The DSA Congresswomen, Ocasio Cortez and Tlaib could lead the way and exit the Democratic Party trap. These two along with all the other elected officials that claim DSA membership like the five Chicago City Council members should lead a campaign within DSA to break from the Democratic Party and go about organizing and helping unite the numerous isolated social movements in to a national organization. A national united alliance or movement could coordinate the fightback on the ground with direct action and also through running candidates in the political arena. DSA claims the legacy of Eugene Debs but Debs did not support capitalist parties.  There are struggles around health care, housing, racism and poison water that Americans are being forced to drink. The teacher’s protests/strikes showed that the rank and file of organized labor is beginning to stir, something that scares the labor hierarchy and many of their left wing supporters that act as a sort of left cover for them. The mood is out there.
In addition, Climate change, something that Trump and many other Republican politicians argue is a hoax, is perhaps the foremost issue on the minds of young people today. We can see that in Europe where the Green Party has made huge gains recently including winning 12% of the vote in Britain.  The Greens won one in five votes in the European elections and its demographic is shifting, “They were not only the most popular among all voters under the age of 60 but for the first time among unemployed voters, too.” The NYT reported.  
And a former Green Party member who worked for the party who now works for Germany’s largest union, IG Metall, makes a very important point when he tells the NYT that , “If you want to achieve an ecological society, you have to take working people with you. That new society has to be fair.”
It's worth considering that the DSA could soon have almost half the membership of Britain’s Conservative Party (Tories) whose 160,000 members are about to elect the Prime Minister of the fourth or fight largest economy in the world.
There is a huge opportunity here and DSA needs to grab it by the horns if it is not to die a slow death, and we should always remind ourselves that we are looking at a deep recession or slump in the not so distant future. I read an article today in which Bhaskar Sunkara, a co-founder of Jacobin Magazine who describes himself as a socialist waxed eloquent about Bernie Sanders, clearly supporting him and the Democratic Party as the choice for president in 2020. This is a disaster. It is best to consider more closely what the 100 million people who never participated in the 2016 election might be thinking. As we point out on this forum, the era in which the two parties of capitalism dominated US political life is having its last gasp. Yet comrade Sunkara and the strategists atop organized labor continue to offer to the US working class a political party they abandoned long ago.
Many DSA members are also members of unions. As we have pointed out on this blog, the DSA leadership has basically contracted out its union work to those whose approach in this field is best represented by Labor Notes and others and while an organization like LN can offer considerable material support to workers on strike or local unions (as I found as a local leader some years ago), the failure to take up the disastrous role of the present labor hierarchy and openly campaign against it is a serious weakness. Myself and others around this blog have made our differences clear and that any differences with regard to such important activity should be aired openly and discussed in depth throughout the organization in a comradely and non-sectarian way.*
DSA members who are also in unions should introduce resolutions to their bodies not only condemning these latest racist attacks on four women Congresspersons, but also for their local to call on DSA and its members in Congress and other political bodies to push for DSA to leave this party and take a different road.
* Some articles on differences in approach to union work

UPS/Teamster Contract: Two Strategies, Labor Notes and FFWP

DSA, Labor Notes and the Trade Unions

"Work With Capitalism, Not Against It". Why the Labor Leadership Surrenders to the Bosses 

AOC attacked. Racist Trump Appeals to His Base. Pelosi Fights to keep Democratic Party a Capitalist party.

Chicagoans rally against ICE

Trump's latest racist and xenophobic assault on the four new Democratic Congresswomen and the pathetic responses from Democrats underlines the serious crisis facing the two capitalist parties and US society as a whole. Trump writes:

"So interesting to see 'Progressive' Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run," he said in tweets. "Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."  "These places need your help badly, you can't leave fast enough. I'm sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!" 

So says the US president, himself a serial sexual predator. I took a friend up who simply described him as an idiot. But there are idiots that are not necessarily harmful. Trump is an idiot, but more important he is a racist, a misogynist and clearly a ultra right wing demagogue. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez  (AOC) was born in the US, a great part of the US, the Bronx. Trump's intention is to feed his Nazi base with these comments. He knows he is not popular.

I know people who tolerate Trump supporters but please consider that. Do not assume fascism cannot present more serious and organized dangers here. I am optimistic as the US working class is not as conservative as the mass media and many on social media make out. Remember, 100 million or so never voted in the last election. They are not absent because they are all right wing racists. 

I was talking with a friend the other day, a person of color who, in his frustration raised what it is about white people that they put this racist in office. He was a bit despaired. But "white" people did not; the undemocratic Electoral College did. Trump never even won the popular vote. Of the 100 million that opted out I would guess most of them are white. And I raised with my friend that he voted for Obama. Obama is a war criminal. He is a killer of persons of color himself. He increased Bush's murderous drone assassinations taking out many civilians in the process and look what he did in Libya not to mention the whole Yemen horror. Life and politics is complicated at times

I sympathize with many of my black friends that voted for Obama (not so much the white ones) as it was such a historic event to have a black man in the president's chair given the history of racial oppression in this country, but you don't get that reward without being trusted. Obama was very good to the US white racist ruling class.

The US working class is more diverse than ever before. The military is 40% minorities, women, gays, non whites etc. The US workplace is extremely diverse also, women in particular have flocked in to the paid workplace. The white working class has been savaged over the past period and the same conditions that made it easier for the white ruling class to draw them in to their camp on the basis of a "white race" are not there. We have to be careful, Starbuck's did not close all it's coffee shops for a day to provide phony sensitivity training after two black guys were asked to leave for nothing.  The mood to return to the former open racist aspects of US society is not out there in general. If it was the Starbucks bosses would have saved themselves some money.

The reason for the delay in a generalized mass movement in the US is the role not played by the heads of the workers organizations, the trade unions. At every step of the way the heads of organized labor defend capitalism when it goes in to crisis and that means at the expense of their own members and the working class as a whole. And what is obvious is that US society and the US political system is in extreme crisis. As we say often on this blog, the era in which the two parties of US capitalism, the Democrats and Republicans have dominated US political life is coming to an end. Trump has accelerated this process with his intense attacks on the working class, women, immigrants and people of color. 

The Democratic Party is unable to respond adequately to this offensive, an overconfident move by some of the more right wing sections of the US bourgeois that support Trump. Pelosi’s recent attack on Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the others has its roots in the extreme crisis engulfing US capitalism. It is a sign of the weakness of the present political system as the era in which two parties have governed US society for over a century is coming to an end. Pelosi’s assault on AOC is a sign of her weakness not strength. It is not out of hatred for black or brown women this is happening; Pelosi may or may not be a racist, this is not the issue. Any force or individual that opposes the horrors of US society and that challenges the present system and those who profit from it will face the most vile slanders, racist and sexist attacks and, as anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of US history, the possibility of extreme violence. Peggy Noonan, Reagan's former speech writer also launched a predominantly personal tirade against Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Ilhan Omar in particular in yesterday's Wall Street Journal; this is further evidence of the fear just a few left of center Democrats bring to the table in this era. Working class people should not just condemn racism and not fall prey to it from our enemies whether the right wing Republican or Democrats like Pelosi.

Trump's latest xenophobic assault on the five Democratic Party Congresswomen has forced a response from Pelosi who again accused him of wanting to make America "white" again. She stresses our diversity and calls for unity; color, race, sexual orientation are the issues, never class or class politics.  The racist and xenophobic attacks on Omar, Cortez and the others are a tactic, a by product of the real war against their mild political positions by most standards. This reflects the tenuous hold the two parties of capitalism have over the US electorate and the US working class in general. Some 57% of Americans want a different political party from the Republicans and Democrats, significant proportions support some form of socialism. There is a general feeling of disgust at the two capitalist parties and a strong desire for a change. Pelosi and company do not want this anger to find organized expression, rather, as is normally the case with movements, they wish draw this anger in to the Democratic Party where it will die suffer a slow death.

With the absence of any real lead from the heads of organized labor resistance has been delayed. It's shameful their collective silence as children are ripped from their parents and thrown in to camps and cages where we have witnessed numerous deaths. But the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) that has grown from only 6,000 members a few years ago to 60,000 today, has an opportunity. The leadership of DSA has endorsed Bernie Sanders which as we have said, is a serious mistake. The DSA leadership overwhelmingly supports remaining in the Democratic Party. Both these decisions will harm the DSA in the future.  Aleaxandria Ocasio Cortez and other DSA members that are on municipal bodies or in Congress should abandon the Democratic party as millions of workers have done and fight within DSA for DSA to help build a generalized movement against the capitalist offensive and run candidates.

DSA has almost half the members of the British Tory Party which is the oldest capitalist party in the world and it's 160,000 members will be voting for the next UK Prime Minister.  DSA has the resources to help draw together the numerous forces and groupings that are fighting back against the capitalist offensive, the fight against racism, the women's movement, the environmental activists, and so on.

The teachers/educators strikes and protests have opened up a new era within organized labor, a door that the present union leadership would like to close but this leadership is not able to ignore the successes that these struggles achieved. These struggles using their militant approach and by-passing the union leadership have made gains. This demolishes all the arguments of the labor hierarchy that gains cannot be made in this period and concessions have to be made to the corporations and their capitalist system. These are the arguments the labor hierarchy have used to suppress rank and file attempts to fight back. We can't win, we can't strike illegally, workers are too backward too scared, too whatever. DSA can assist these new movements and militant methods to grow and link up with other struggles and in this way build a national campaign of resistance and this campaign can run its own candidates and build a workers party.

This Blog continually points out and opposes the refusal to fight of the labor leaders. And that this refusal is because they see no alternative to capitalism, they have comfortable positions within capitalism and they fear their own members and the working class more than they fear the bosses. While pointing this out we would like to suggest to union locals and regional bodies that they should take a stand against the policies of the union leaders. Union members should move resolutions to locals and regional bodies about the policies of the union leadership and how they have failed and are failing and present an alternative. These can be distributed to members in advance and members asked to attend and give their views. Social Media can be used to build for these meetings and also to discuss the policies of the union leaders. Pass resolutions and mobilize against them. Invite activists from the Teachers and Educators movements to speak at these meetings and explain how they made their gains.

Union locals and regional bodies should also discuss and issue statements opposing Trump's and Pelosi's attacks on AOC and her associates. These bodies should suggest to AOC and her associates that they should not confine themselves to opposing Pelosi and Schumer and company on the issue of racism and sexism and immigration. They should extend their opposition to these people who run the Democratic party to their support for capitalism and their support for the capitalist class and their opposition to the working class and our interests. Pelosi and Schumer and co are class conscious. They are determined to keep the Democratic Party a party of the capitalist class. They will wreck it rather than allow it to represent the working class. It is futile, worse than futile to imagine that the Democratic party can represent the working class. Union locals and regional bodies should call on Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and her associates and DSA to leave the capitalist Democratic Party and build the alternative we explain, a mass party of the working class, and run candidates for 2020 on this basis.  

Seeing Trump's racist calls for anyone that criticizes US government policy to leave the country or go back to where they are from (this would mean the Bronx for Ocasio Cortez) got me a little fired up so I apologize for a quickly penned response to it. But we should recognize the dangers and not be complacent. We should also be clear that the "broken and crime infested" countries that Trump is referring to are predominantly Central American and are also home to many of the immigrants trying to apply for entry here. The conditions that Trump refers to are the product of US government policy. Just ask a Marine Corp General:

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

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US Economy: A profits recession?

by Michael Roberts

This week, we get the first US company reports on earnings for the second quarter of 2019.  And it looks as though there will be the first back-to-back drop in overall earnings since the mini-recession of 2016.  S&P 500 companies are expected to report an average earnings fall of 2.8 per cent in the second quarter, according to data provider FactSet, following a 0.3 per cent dip in the first three months of the year.



Much is made of the large profits that the top tech companies, the so-called FAANGS, make.  But this hides the situation for the majority of US companies.  Those with a market value of $300m to $2bn look set to experience a 12% drop in earnings from this time last year after a 17% drop in Q1 2019.  So small to medium size American companies are suffering a sharp profits decline.

And even with the larger companies, profits are not as good as portrayed.  That’s because earnings per share have been boosted by the large companies buying back their own shares (same earnings but with less shares available).  Net share buybacks are expected to contribute 2.1 percentage points to EPS growth in the second quarter, according to analysts at Credit Suisse. US companies snapped up more than $1tn of their own stock last year, a record figure, driven by the Trump tax measures.

Underlying this decline in profits are higher wage costs as fuller employment forces companies to concede wage increases to keep skilled workers – it’s a different story with the less skilled outside the tech sector.  Also the cost of other non-labour inputs (energy, raw materials etc) are rising.  So profit margins (profits per unit of production) are falling.  Analysts expect non-financial companies to report net margins of 10.8 per cent in the second quarter, down from 11.5 per cent in the year-ago quarter, according to figures cited by BofA analysts. “We have been highlighting risk to margins from rising input costs for companies that don’t have pricing power, as well as for labour-intensive companies and sectors amid rising wages, and we expect full-year net margins to contract to 11.2 per cent in 2019 ex-financials from 11.7 per cent in 2018,” they add.

The strong US dollar has also meant that US export companies are finding it more difficult to sustain sales growth.  S&P 500 companies are forecast to report a 3.7 per cent increase in revenues, which would be the weakest growth since the third quarter of 2016.


Materials companies, the sector with the most sensitivity to China and the fallout from the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing, are expected to have had the toughest time in the second quarter. DuPont and Freeport-McMoRan are expected to be the biggest contributors to the sector’s earnings slump, according to FactSet. The sector is projected to report a 16 per cent year-on-year decline in earnings and a 14.9 per cent drop in revenues.

Most important, even the tech sector will experience an 11.9 per cent fall in earnings and a 1.1 per cent drop in revenues.  This is important because it is this sector above all that has driven profits growth in American companies over the period since the Great Recession.  If the FAANGS show a decline on profits, then American capital is in trouble.

As James Montier, the post-Keynesian economist at GMO, the large asset fund manager, points out, real earnings growth in the corporate sector has been below the rate of real GDP growth even after the significant boost from the financial engineering from share buybacks.  According to Montier, when you dig down into the market you find that a staggering 25-30 per cent of firms are actually making a loss.

In Montier’s view, “the US is witnessing the rise of the “dual economy” — where productivity growth is reasonable in some sectors, and totally absent in others. Even in the sectors with good productivity growth, real wages are lagging (wage suppression is occurring). All the employment growth we are seeing is coming from the low productivity sectors. On top of this, the paltry gains in income that are being made are all going to the top 10%. This is not what a booming economy should feel like.”

There is a segregation of the US economy into sectors with reasonable productivity growth and those with no productivity growth at all. The single biggest driver of productivity is manufacturing, with information and wholesale trade scoring respectably as well. On the least productive side there’s transportation, accommodation, education and healthcare. What’s more, in the laggard group, zero productivity growth has gone hand in hand with zero real wage growth.


Not that this historic non-profitability has stopped investors from piling into even more loss-making opportunities. According to Montier, some 83 per cent of IPOs (new stock issues) this year have come to the market with negative earnings. He stresses:”This is a higher percentage than that seen even at the height of the tech bubble!”

So the stock market rolls on upward to more record highs, floated by the expectation of yet more cheap or near zero cost money from the Federal Reserve.  But beneath the hype, the reality is that profits are falling for many US companies, and over a quarter are making loss – in effect, they are ‘zombie companies’.

It is the same story in Europe and Japan. If the profits crash materialises and is sustained through the year, a sharp fall in investment and eventually employment and spending will follow, despite the stock market boom – in effect a new recession.

Norman Finkelstein, Anti-Semitism and the UK Labor Party

Norman Finkelstein demolishes the attack on Corbyn by the British right wing in the LP and out, defending all Jews against the odious effects Zionism has on centuries of Jewish history, a history of resistance and heroic struggle against oppression and discrimination. Through all of this, the overwhelmingly positive contributions Jewish communities and individuals made with regard to European and world history stand out as a yet another testament to the human capacity to survive.

Read his book, The Holocaust Industry

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David Attenborough's Malthusian Trap

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

Just a spur of the moment thing as I was reading an article about David Attenborough. I get a little pissed off with these environmentalists like Attenborough.

David Attenborough and other environmental activists who are constantly talking about how the planet cannot continue to maintain human society and how we live, knowingly or not, refuses to point a finger at the culprit. Environmental catastrophe and the potential for an end of life as we know it on this planet, is a product of system crisis, of the failure of capitalism. This cannot be halted within the framework of capitalism. By ignoring this, Attenborough and others like him are blaming the victims rather than the cause of the problem. His failure to see democratic Socialism as the only answer and the working class as the only force that can bring that about, leads him to this Malthusian trap where the world's poor, and overwhelmingly women, are in the line of fire. It is how we produce the necessities of life that is the problem. Not Ethiopian or Indian birth rates.

In the article I read and I think it was a report of him speaking to the Radio Times in the UK. He says, "We are a plague on the Earth. It's coming home to roost aver the next 50 years or so. It's not just climate change; It's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now."

This man who's backward thinking doesn't allow him the capacity to reject a title that ensures he is called "Sir" David Attenborough, offer as a solution to what is a global capitalist crisis of catastrophic proportions, sex education and "other voluntary means of limiting population in developing countries.". So he's not talking about the Rotterdam area which has quite a high population density but India and Ethiopia and what he calls "developing countries" that cannot and will not develop because capitalism cannot develop them.

Attenborough talks about Ethiopia and how they cannot support themselves and that there's "Too many people there.".  As I point out in the video, there are two adults living on plots of land in my community, and I'm one of them, and this space could probably feed five or more families in India or Ethiopia.  It is typical of first world intellectuals to find solutions to capitalist crisis on the backs of the world's poor. Attenborough attacking the poor in the former colonial world  has to be condemned.

Reviewed here

I'll end here, I say my short piece in the video above. If you want to read a good book on this subject  check out Ian Angus' book, Too Many People.

Greece: completing the vicious circle

by Michael Roberts

So the full circle is completed.  The corrupt pro-business conservative New Democracy party in Greece that was ousted by the anti-capitalist Syriza party in 2015 has been returned to office in yesterday’s general election, with an outright majority over all other parties.


New Democracy party got just under 40% of the votes cast. Syriza under Alexis Tsipras got just under 32% of the vote. The voter turnout was just over 57%, the lowest rate since the end of military rule in 1974, suggesting huge disillusionment with all parties.  The Syriza vote share was down only 3.5% from the last election in 2015, but the New Democracy share rose from 28% to 40%. The small parties (including the Syriza left breakaway parties) did poorly, although the former PASOK social democrats increased their share from 6.3% to 8% and the Communists were unchanged at 5%. Also a new party MeRa25, set up by former Syriza finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, got over the 3% threshold and will have MPs for the first time.  The neo-fascist Golden Dawn failed to make it.

The last four years of the Syriza government have been both tumultuous and saddening.  Elected to oppose the policies of the Troika (the ECB, IMF, and the EU) in imposing vicious austerity measures on Greeks in return for ‘bailing out’ its banks, foreign banks and government debt, Syriza at first resisted the Troika.  Under Tsipras and Varoufakis, it searched for a deal with the Euro leaders that would not impose the austerity.  When such a deal was rejected by the Troika and the Euro leaders led by Germany and the Netherlands, Tsipras called a referendum on the Troika ‘memorandum’: should Greeks accept the austerity or reject it?  Despite a massive propaganda campaign by the pro-business media in Greece and internationally and lack lustre campaigning by Syriza, Greeks voted 60-40 to reject the Troika.  Little more than one day later, the government ignored the vote and capitulated.

For the next four years, the Syriza government has duly attempted to implement every single demand of the Troika.  Pensions have been slashed, public sector employees have been sacked and wage freezes imposed, state assets have been sold off, taxes have been raised sharply.  Varoufakis resigned after the capitulation and toured Europe; and the left faction in Syriza split away to run its own electoral parties – to no avail.  The Syriza government ploughed on in the hope and expectation that if it met the austerity measures imposed by the Troika, it would eventually be able to resume economic growth, gain some ‘fiscal space’ and ‘return to the market’ for government borrowing.

The first loans that the government had got from the Troika were used to pay off French and German banks which held billions on Greek government debt that was not virtually worthless.  After this private sector bailout, the next loans were used to meet repayments to the IMF, the ECB and other governments from the first bailouts.  In this never-ending circle more debt was raised to pay off previous debt!  None of this money went to alleviate the depression being suffered by Greeks to their living standards.  The Greek economy collapsed by 30%, pensions and wages fell 40%; thousands of young people emigrated for work and public services and jobs were decimated.  And the biggest hit was to private sector jobs in tourism, industry and travel.

Did these sacrifices restore Greek capitalism and eventually reverse the calamitous decline in output, employment and incomes?  The short answer is no.  Greek unemployment rates remain very high, especially for young people.

Capital investment collapsed during the debt crisis but has not recovered.  Greek business cannot invest.
Gross capital formation (Em)


Government spending has been driven down by the austerity measures.
Government spending to GDP

But this has not reduced government debt to GDP, which remains at a staggering 180% of GDP and will stay there for the foreseeable future.  All the austerity measures have not dented the government debt built up to bail out the foreign banks, the Greek banks and other holders of Greek government debt.  The failure of the private sector, Greek business and global capitalism has been shifted onto the books of the government and its people for generations to come.
Public debt to GDP (%)

The huge loans that the Greek government owes to the EU leaders (the IMF and the ECB have been paid off) do not have to be repaid for a decade or more and the interest cost on the loans is low.  But the debt has not been written off; it must be repaid eventually and the Greek government must run a huge budget surplus in order to cover future payments, the interest on the debt and to obtain new loans from the global market.

The whole strategy of the Syriza government was that, as economic growth returned to the Eurozone, it would lift up the Greek boat with other European boats in the rising tide of economic recovery.  ‘Fiscal space’ would be created and public services and pensions could then be improved while still meeting the repayment schedule of the creditors.

But it has not worked out like that.  Eurozone economic growth since the debt crisis has been pathetic, hardly creeping above 2% a year and now slowing again fast.  During the debt crisis and the eventual capitulation of the Syriza government, I estimated that Greek economic growth would have to average at least 3% a year in order to end austerity if the government continued its commitments to the Troika.  Instead, the Greek growth rate has been averaged little more than 1% a year under the Syriza government.  It’s currently slowing down from a short burst above 2% to just 1.3%
Greece: annual real GDP growth (%)

The new Conservative government takes over just as the Eurozone economies and much of the rest of the world face a slowdown in investment, trade and growth at best – and an outright recession at worst.

The Syriza leaders’ economic strategy of accepting the Troika programme, honouring the debt burden and staying in the EU has failed.  The result has been total disillusionment with Syriza, particularly among the young. Many have left to find work; those who have not either did not vote in the election or voted for a change of government in the form of New Democracy.  Anecdotes of these attitudes have been expressed in the media.

Like many young Greeks, Tasos Stavridis plans to leave the country once he finishes his degree in political science.  “Our financial crisis has gone on much longer than we expected and we are so exhausted,” says the 22-year-old. “Most of my friends plan to leave too. In Greece the salaries are so low, and the economic situation is so bad,”  What about New Democracy? “The truth is, I blame them [for the crisis] too,” admits Stavridis. “But I believe Mitsotakis has made a lot of changes. I agree with the economic plan this party has, and I believe it will help us escape this situation.” We must focus on the private sector in order to get better economically,” he believes. “Our public sector is inefficient and lazy.”  Then “The last time my family supported something left, it turned out to be a lot worse,” says Zoe Babaolou, a 19 year old from Thessaloniki who voted for New Democracy in the European elections. “It seems better to return to something safer.” Babaolou adds: “We voted for ideology in 2015 and we didn’t see any changes. So I’m more interested in economic measures.”

Could there have been an alternative to the strategy of Tsripras and the Syriza leaders back in July 2015 when the referendum to oppose Troika austerity was supported by the majority of Greek people?  I think there was.  One option prominently pushed by the left faction of Syriza MPs was to break with the EU and the euro; revert to the Greek drachma, devalue the currency, impose capital controls on any flight of money, renege on the debt and revert to government spending programmes.
For example, this was the option presented by socialist economist and Syriza MP, Costas Lapavitsas, at the time.  Lapavitsas took a principled stand against the capitulation and broke with Syriza.  But he argued that: “the obvious solution for Greece right now, when I look at it as a political economist, the optimal solution, would be a negotiated exit. Not necessarily a contested exit, but a negotiated exit.” This would involve a 50% write-off the debt owed to the EU and protection of the new Greek currency (devalued by just 20%) with liquidity from the ECB.

My thought then was that even if the Troika were to agree to such a ‘negotiated exit’, which was a moot point; and even if the new Greek drachma only depreciated by 20% (extremely unlikely), the Greek economy would still be on its knees, unable to restore living standards for the majority. Devaluation and rising prices would eat into any gains made from cheaper exports. Lapavitsas seemed to recognise this when he said at the time:“Wages must rise, but even if they rise, you’re not going to go back to where you were. It’s just not feasible at the moment. We need a growth strategy for that.”

But Lapavitsas opposed a growth strategy based on socialist planning. “I don’t think that Syriza should come out with a broad and wide nationalization program right now. What is necessary is to nationalize the banks, of course. And to make sure that energy privatizations stop, electricity in particular. That stops. And privatization of other key assets stops. We need to put a growth and recovery strategy in place immediately outside of the euro, and later to have a medium-term development plan.” For me, the strategy that Greece leaves the euro and implements a broad Keynesian spending programme first, leaving any socialist measures to later could not work because the forces of capital internationally and domestically would be untouched.

In my view, there was another option: a broad and wide programme to replace capitalism. For me Greek capitalism needed to be replaced, in or out of the euro. That would mean public ownership of all big business and foreign capital in Greece; a democratic mobilisation of workers to control their workplaces and the economy with a plan of investment and production.  A socialist Syriza could then appeal for support among the wider labour movement in Europe to force their governments to drop their imposition of austerity, cancel the debt and begin a Europe-wide programme of investment to include Greece.

Such a strategy would have more support from other European workers and at home than one that concentrated on condemning the euro as the problem.  After all, there was always a majority of Greeks in favour of staying in the euro and the EU. Greece is a small and weak capitalist economy; it cannot succeed without success in the rest of Europe; and that applies to a socialist Greece too.  But at least the Greek people would be in control of their own capital assets and labour allocation.

But whatever the merits of a Keynesian or Marxist option back in 2015, now we have the return of the pro-business, corrupt, dynastic-led New Democracy government which originally presided over the financial crash and recession back in 2010.  The programme of the Mitsotakis government is to privatise, reduce taxes for the rich and encourage foreign investment, while keeping wages and pensions down and government services to the minimum – neoliberalism if you want to call it that.


The real aim is to boost the profitability of Greek capital as the economic solution and hope that capitalist then invest in Greece.  According to the EU’s AMECO database, Greece’s net return on capital plummeted by 35% from 2007 to 2012.  Under the Syriza government, profitability recovered 20% but is still some 15% below the 2007 peak.  The aim of the new government will be to continue the work of Syriza to save capitalism but with extra energy and vengeance.  Meanwhile a new global recession looms nearer.